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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Verizon / April 2004Text Messaging Spam...
I am torqued up here. Somebody set me straight if I'm off base. For the past year I've had a variety of Text Messaging plans. I love Text Messaging as it's e-mail on my phone. I use it for business and not recreational purposes. It's very convenient. I maintain an account at vtext.com. About 2 weeks ago as an experiment I signed up for VZW Mobile. It comes bundled with Hotmail. I still have clients that contact me at my vtext.com address. I was shocked after I signed up for VZW Mobile, that, while coincidental, all of a sudden I started to receive an onslaught of spam through my vtext.com address. Spam on my cellular phone... Now here's the problem: Currently, I ala carte' messages.. which is to say it's 10 cents to send messages, 2 cents to receive. I do not have a formal text Messaging plan through my vtext.com account. Currently, I am receiving 5-7 spammed messages per day. Per day. Wow.. Now therein lies the rub. Let's do some quick math: 5 spammed messages per day X 30 days in a month= 150 messages per month X 12 months=1,800 spammed messages per year=1800 messages. 1800 messages per year=$36 annually. Believe me, this is not a stretch. The spam has been coming through with great regularity without a break. If I am ala careting my text messaging plan, I must pay Verizon $36 a year to be spammed!!!! No way. No way... Imagine if your standard ISP charged you for each e-mail piece you receive. With the mass of spam we all receive. Not only that, much of the spam I receive appears to be virus infected with subject lines such as "Mail Delivery Failure." Lots of messages that have attachments and have .pif file extensions. This is way too bizarre.. Let's say I subscribe Text Messaging plan. $1.99 for 100 messages per month. Currently, at the rate I'm going I would exceed my monthly allotment in spam.. In essence in order to not incure charges for spam I would be forced to subscribe to a formal plan large enough to absorbe the flow of spam I receive.. It may be desirable to wish for an end to the flow of sewage that floods our Inboxes but in the short run there is no easy answer. But then again my ISP doesn't charge me for each e-mail I receive. My options don't seem that palatable. I could cancel my vtext.com account. But what guarantee do I have that the new account won't be vandalized like the old one? There is no guarantee. I contacted CS the other day.. I tried ny best to explain my plight to several reps. No one seemed to really understand. Finally someone offered me 100 free text messages for a 6 month period as a "placebo." But it's not the answer. This is a classic Catch-22. No way to stop spam, and Verizon charges for each Text Message sent/received. This is nuts.... What to do here? Any thoughts or advice appreciated. Thanks, B Hold on pardoner....... I am singed up with VZW Mobil on hotmail too and receive no spam. Also, you have got text messaging and email confused. Text messaging has nothing to do with VZW Mobil on hotmail. Text messaging uses SMS technology (limited to 160 characters) and email uses an email provider such as hotmail. Now... about hotmail... it can be configured to send EACH AND EVERY EMAIL to your phone via VZW Mobil (apparently what you have done) OR it can be configured to send ONLY EMAILS WITH SPECIFIC SUBJECT LINES. So you simply tell people to put "ALERT", or "NOTICE", or "URGENT", or "MOBIL", or "<your choice>" in the subject line. That way you will only receive the emails you want on your phone, not all the (unavoidable) spam that infests virtually every email account. -Frank > I am torqued up here. Somebody set me straight if I'm off base. > [quoted text clipped - 72 lines] > > B > Hold on pardoner....... > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > -Frank Thanks, Frank... I understand that that text messaging and Hotmail available through VZW Mobile are different. I realize that text messaging is character limited. It's e-mail in the sense that one can send e-mail from a PC to a phone or vice-versa, albeit limited to 160 characters... It's not going to be a long message.. Sorry to muddle the issue here... To clarify, no.. I don't receive any spam through my Hotmail account on VZW Mobile. I just thought it coincidental that I signed up for VZW Mobile and within 2-3 days my vtext account was getting saturated with spam... But having said that how do we justify Verizon charging for per-piece messages when the messages are UUCE/spam? Thanks, B > Hold on pardoner....... > > I am singed up with VZW Mobil on hotmail too and receive no spam. Also, you > have got text messaging and email confused. Text messaging has nothing to > do with VZW Mobil on hotmail. Text messaging uses SMS technology (limited > to 160 characters) and email uses an email provider such as hotmail. I received a message today that I know to be generated by a virus. I've received spams from eCost.com/PCMall (who insisted that none of the email addresses forwarding to my cell phone were in their database, but they're lying slimebags) -- but only a few. I'm sure VZW runs spam/virus filters, but there isn't a spam filter out there that can catch 100% of the junk. That having been said, it'd be really nice if VZW gave more fine-grained control to their customers via the TXT Blocking section of vtext.com.  SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 > This is a classic Catch-22. No way to stop spam, and Verizon charges > for each Text Message sent/received. This is nuts.... [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > B Welcome to reality. They will NOT do anything since they make money off it! Actually you can stop all text messages (including the spam), but unfortunately that means nobody else can send you text messages either. Not really a catch-22, more like you want your cake and eat it too. If you get 5-10 spams a day, just think of it as a surcharge of .10-.20 a day so you can get the text messages you want :) > Welcome to reality. They will NOT do anything since they make money off > it! [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > If you get 5-10 spams a day, just think of it as a surcharge of .10-.20 a > day so you can get the text messages you want :) Welcome to Reality... Yup you're right.. I know... I am looking for an ideal world which doesn't exist... $$ talks and BS walks... But damnit... I'm already paying $2-3 per month for text messaging... If I'm supposed to get say 100 messages that shouldn't be 60% valid messages and 40% junk. That erodes my available messages... I'm really NOT getting what I am paying for... Sigh.... I know I'm screwed... I just need to vent.. It ain't right... it just ain't right... Thanks, B >> Welcome to reality. They will NOT do anything since they make money >> off it! [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > B Just a note, after you posted the above, I experimented a bit. While I have a block on any SMS messages, there is one specific type that goes thru even though the rest are blocked. Those either from the vtext.com website, or to your nickname, go thru no matter what. How to beat the blocking: If I log onto vtext (www.vtext.com) and send a message from there, it goes thru no matter what, or even better, if you set up a nickname to your account, and send a message there (even though blocked), it goes thru and gets sent. For instance, (I will use (nickname) instead of the actual nickname that I have), if I send email to (nickname)@vtext.com even though I have messages normally blocked, it comes through on my handset. So all the junkmail is blocked, but people that have to message me still can, they just have to go thru vtext or send email to my nickname to get around it. Don't know if it would work for you in your situation, but for me, that's how I have my cake and eat it too (mmmmmm.... Devils Food cake!) > Just a note, after you posted the above, I experimented a bit. While I > have [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > me, that's how I have my cake and eat it too (mmmmmm.... Devils Food > cake!) Peter Pan; That was a masterful piece of research... I was so jazzed to take it for a spin... I logged on to vtext,com and established a nickname. Then I blocked messages from both the web and also from e-mail. I sent a message to my handset from the web to the nickname account.. Nothing... With SMS blocked, but web unblocked, I sent a message to my handset... Nothing.. I tried every which way but loose, but no Devil's Food cake... Unless I farkled the instructions... I block both web messages and SMS messages, send a message to nickname@vtext.com but nothing comes through... I can only receive messages if I unblock text messages from vtext.com. PP is there something i may have done wrong here I wonder? By the way, in support of what Stephen said in an earlier post a significant number of messages I receive ARE virus infected. They inidicate that there is an attachment. The language of the e-mail matches exactly with several known viruses and worms. In addition I have received e-mails from persons who are known safe senders that contain infected attachements. I too, verified with those people that they have n't sent anything to me at this address... B >> Just a note, after you posted the above, I experimented a bit. While >> I have [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > > B The difference that I can think of, is I called CS (*611) and had em block all SMS messages, rather than try to set anything on the website. I surmise it may be the setting on the vtext website blocks things from vtext, and vtext can look things up directly rather than get the settings from verizon for my account, IE if you have it blocked from verizon instead of on the vtext site, it still seems to go thru. Or it may be that some messages, sent thru vtext, can still go thru. IE even though I have blocking on, I still get a msg once in a while from verizon (usually a free msg that touts some new feature). Makes me sort of wonder, if you block on the website, does it also block those free messages that verizon sends? (anyone know?). I haven't asked, but can you call CS and have em block SMS, try it, and then call and have em re-enable em if it doesn't do what you want? > The difference that I can think of, is I called CS (*611) and had em block > all SMS messages For what it's worth, if you block email and web messages at vtext.com you will still be able to receive direct SMS from another phone. (of course, that's not true if you have CS turn off SMS completely.) SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 >> The difference that I can think of, is I called CS (*611) and had em >> block all SMS messages > > For what it's worth, if you block email and web messages at vtext.com > you will still be able to receive direct SMS from another phone. (of > course, that's not true if you have CS turn off SMS completely.) I had them (CS) turn off stuff completely, but can still get messages/email etc (sent to my nickname), messages from CS about changes etc, and message to/from my phone to my friends. Wonder why it works for me? (I'm not complaining at all since it does work, just trying to figger it out so I can explain it to others). Now that I think of it, I also get messages when I do a #bal too, does that get turned off if you block at the website? > Now that I think of it, I also get messages when I do a #bal too, does that > get turned off if you block at the website? I don't think #bal and #min do, as I was still able to use them when I had SMS completely turned off. You shouldn't theoretically be able to receive SMS from other phones if you have SMS disabled, though. SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 I not positive this if your problem, but can't hurt to check it out: When you sign up and register at the www.vtext.com website where you created a nickname, it might have added you to some of those Verizon SMS Special Interest Groups or Clubs by default. If so you are going to get messages that get posted by anyone to any of the groups you are currently a member of. You can go into the profile or account info area at the website and disable the sending to your cellphone automatically any messages posted to groups you are already a member of by default. You can also leave any of the groups you are a member of that you didn't even know you were. I somehow enabled that function after joining a group one time and got SMS(s) ever few minutes until I went back and unjoined the groups and disabled the auto send feature. Hope this helps! JoshIII http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tracfoneusers If Activating a TracFone Get Referrals For 100 Free Minutes with Activation: joshp51@hotmail.com TraFone uses Verizon, Cingular, Suncom, and Alltel networks (to name a few) > > Welcome to reality. They will NOT do anything since they make money off > > it! [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > B > About 2 weeks ago as an experiment I signed up for > VZW Mobile. It comes bundled with Hotmail. It just occurred to me that this is probably the problem. I have all that you mentioned, but I never loaded any software at all on my computer. You say it came "bundled with" hotmail. Did you load this stuff off a disk? If so, there's the culprit I think. -Frank |
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